Kuwait Times

Published Date: December 29, 2007

DUBAI: Newspapers in the Gulf, home to many Pakistani expatriates, called for calm yesterday following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto which some papers called inevitable. "It is strongly urged that charged sentiments be turned to keeping calm instead of igniting further trouble," said the Khaleej Times English-language daily in the United Arab Emirates, where Bhutto lived in exile for eight years.

Now, there is much fear of massive rioting breaking out across the length and breadth of Pakistan, prompting a return to emergency (law) and undoing the election cycle." The Arabic-language UAE daily Al-Khaleej said it feared for the future in Pakistan after the two-time prime minister was killed in a gun and suicide attack during an election rally on Thursday.

What is happening in Pakistan makes us put hands over hearts in fear and alarm," it said. "Our hearts go out to Pakistan.

In Saudi Arabia, the English-language daily Arab News said in its editorial that Bhutto's killing was "targeting Pakistan... (and) meant to plunge Pakistani politics into chaos.

It is up to decent people now to frustrate the murderers and prove their evil hopes wrong," it said.

Some newspapers argued that Bhutto compromised her personal security by returning home despite threats against her, with one calling her actions foolhardy.

It was always deemed a courageous act to return to Pakistan this time to fight the forthcoming elections. But courageous acts can, in retrospect, also be deemed foolhardy," the UAE English-language daily Gulf News wrote.

Saudi Arab News also said that Bhutto's "undoubted personal courage led her to underestimate the dangers," despite her escaping a suicide attack on the day she first returned to Pakistan in October.

The suicide bombing of her convoy during her triumphal return to Karachi ought to have taught her what she was up against. Yet, though her home became a fortress, she eschewed many obvious safety precautions when she was on the political stump," it said.

At (Thursday's) rally, she had no bulletproof protective screen and was, therefore, a target for a sniper or a man with a grenade.

The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat called the assassination inevitable because Bhutto had posed a threat to the military and extremists.

It is not strange that she was killed... This woman was beyond the ability of her foes to bear," the London-based newspaper said.

Anyway, her platform was suicidal. She asked the generals to go back to their barracks after they became addicted to being decision-makers... (while) she demanded a curb on 'extremism factories' in religious schools.

Lebanon's English-language Daily Star said Bhutto's assassination shows "how common... this sort of event has become in that troubled region from North Africa, across the Middle East to southern Asia.

Leaders of these regions "will all speak passionate volumes now about the senseless death of courageous politicians who valued democracy," it said.

Yet it will be hard to take seriously any of their pronouncements, for many of the speakers have spent the last generation sending their armies to war, toppling regimes, authorizing covert assassinations, arming gangs and militias, cozying up to terrorists, lauding autocrats, and ignoring true democrats.

The Cairo daily Al-Masri Al-Yom fretted in its headline: "Pakistan on the brink of civil war after Bhutto's assassination." --- AFP